What I'm Doing

Part Two of Move:

Arriving

Boxes

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Boxes, Part II

The pink gift box with woven top is one of my favorites. I've forgotten what the gift was inside (candles perhaps), but I know who it was from and think of her whenever I see this box (every day). Next to it is a wooden puzzle box from North Carolina that my husband gave me for Christmas one year.

A gathering of little red gift boxes, all of them empty now except for the back center cloth-covered Japanese one, which has a perfume bottle inside. That one is also the largest at 3 in. x 2 in.; the smallest is about 1-1/2 inches square.

The above box was a gift from a Korean student. It is wood with fabric on the front of the small drawers,  stands almost 6 inches high and is 4 inches wide. I use it to hold earrings--simple ones, no diamonds, alas. It really needs to be seen in person to be fully appreciated.

Above are two empty boxes. The top is cloth-covered and came with a necklace inside, and below that  is a Florentine box, from Italy--in this case, the box was the gift. I used to keep letters in it.

Above are two Swiss music boxes, gifts from my husband when we lived in Switzerland (the front one from 1982 and the back one from 2007.)  They are small, about 6 in. x 4 in. and hold a few novelty trinkets. The green one plays "Nach em Rage schint Sunne"; the black one plays Rapsodie Sur Un Theme De Paganini.

This last box is perhaps my favorite of all, another gift from my husband, from Windsor, England, around 1984.  He found it at one of our favorite shops: one devoted almost entirely to old boxes.  It is 8 in. x 12 in. and holds photographs.

There are more boxes scattered throughout our house; I'll round them up some day soon.

The Lure of Boxes

I seem to have accumulated an assortment of boxes. Most have been given to me; some I've chosen. I'm drawn to them. Like books, they suggest treasures within. You might find anything at all.  Mine don't hold treasures, though--or at least not ones valuable to anyone but me; often it is the box itself that is the treasure.

The above three boxes were all gifts. The cloth-covered one on the bottom, with the moons, was from my daughter when Walk Two Moons received the Newbery Medal.  The middle wooden box with decorative inlays was, I think, once my husband's and it once held chess pieces, but the pieces are now gone and the box now belongs in my office and holds pens.  The top box is velvet with a silver top and was a gift from the founder of the European schools in which we worked for twenty years. 

I love the above three manuscript boxes (wood with Liberty paper overlay); they've been in constant use since my husband bought them in London and gave them to me in 1990. The small pencil box on top is from Florence, Italy, and holds . . .pencils.

Kids in a Box

Monday, 8 June 2009

My niece and grandchildren had more fun in this storage box (first photo): hiding in it and surprising aunts, uncles and cousins as they passed by. We laughed so hard because they were laughing so hard.  The cardboard box (second photo) was one of those appliance boxes large enough to make a fort out of, providing days of play.

My own children loved boxes, too, and sheets draped over tables or behind sofas.  I don't remember making indoor forts when I was young, but my siblings and neighbors and I made various rickety outdoor ones with old lumber, branches and leaves.